Other then it being bug ridden, it was pretty much Fallout 3 with the ability to aim down the sights and gamble. Also, it felt so linear and the story wasn't as good as Fallout 3. Sure you could join the Legion, but have fun with t four or less Legion quests outside of the main quest. Though you were given two or more options, they ended being so similar anyway.So what do you guys think makes New Vegas "good"?

You kinda' contradicted yourself there. You said New Vegas was so linear, but then mentioned that you "could join the Legion." That's a key detail there; you can join the Legion. Or the NCR. Or House. Or you can [censored] 'em all. That's more choice than Fallout 3 ever had, where no matter what, you had to join the Brotherhood of Steel and fight the Enclave, no ifs, ands, or buts.

As for story, well it takes all kinds, but I much prefer NV's. It's politically-charged, the moral spectrum is gray all around as opposed to the black-and-white morality of FO3, it's not just a loose rehash of the previous games' plots, and the world design actually makes sense. To say nothing of the dialogue and characters, all of which are better written and multifaceted.

Weapons are much better too. There's a lot more of them around, and though there's a definite progression in the various types, it's not very linear at all. For example, the weapons build for sniping, like the hunting rifle, sniper rifle, and AMR all have various advantages and disadvantages over each other.

Leveling's been improved as well. The perks are far more interesting (not one skill booster among them), and the limit to one every two levels gives them added weight and helps make for more varied character builds and playstyles.

As for bug-ridden, I don't know what you're talking about. People still harp on the bugs that were out on release, but a lot of them got fixed a long time ago. It's really no worse than FO3, which also has its share of annoying bugs that Bethesda never bothered to patch.

Mostly I think it's good because it's better than Fallout 3.

I agree with alot of what Xetirox said.

New Vegas is so much more than Fallout 3 but with the ability to aim down sites.

New Vegas you can join or help prettty much every faction in the game and there are multiple ways to finish the game. Were as you have to join the Brotherhood and no matter what the Enclave get destroyed in Fallout 3. You can't even join Talon Company yet you can join the Regulators.

New Vegas has has a reputation system, so like the originals. Your actions have consequences.

Damage Threshold is back in New Vegas, so Power Armour is better than it is in Fallout 3. Not as good as it in the originals but better than Fallout 3. This goes for all armours.

New Vegas is more advlt than Fallout 3. Way more swearing and six. Not important for some, I know but to me it adds to the game world and immersion. I am an advlt I want to play games with advlt content and humor. Not something Rated M but is really just Rated T.

The game world makes sense, things are explained.

Far more quests in New Vegas than in Fallout 3. Including companion quests.

Traits

hardcoe Mode

The DLC are far better thatn Fallout 3. 3 has two good DLC out of five. All the DLC for New Vegas are great.

The writing for New Vegas is just far better than Fallout 3's.

So all this makes New Vegas great to me

Its the much more interesting and impactful writing it has over Fallout 3. The gameplay is improved too, but not much (imo).

If you NEED that to enjoy an M rated game I find it ridiculous, I mean, yeah that kind of stuff is IN the world, but if you NEED sixual assault, gore, and swearing you may need to reevaluate your priorities. I mean, a game with good writing doesnt NEED cursing in most if not any of it's dialogue. Scarface for example is a decent movie, but that movie is so heavily laden with cursing it just ruined alot of it for me.

Ammo types.
Weapon mods.
More variety of weapons.
Factions to join/help or become enemy with.
Reputation system.
Fleshed out companions.
Companion wheel.
More types of drugs and medicine.
Survival skill.
Better perks.
A 2:1 perk ratio which means characters can't get every perk.
A way more coherent gameworld.
SPECIAL is upgraded.
You can use speech a lot more often.
And even finish the entire main quest without killing a single enemy.
Static skill requirements in dialogue as opposed to % based ones.
hardcoe Mode.
Damamge Threshold instead of Damage Resistance.
Power Armor is rare.
There are variations to enemies, like baby deathclaws, mother deathclaws, young advlt deathclaws et cetera.
6 ways to end the game as opposed to Fallout 3 which had 2. (Includes Dead Money as the Greed Ending)

But you're right, New Vegas is just Fallout 3.

What Xetirox and the others said I'm in a hurry, bye!

But what post-nuclear war world wouldn't be riddled with sixual going ons, violence everywhere and swearing on everyones lips - Just look outside its all around already and there hasn't been a nuclear war. To play a game after these events and not hear a single [censored], [censored] or basterd would just feel highly fake, and people not exploiting the weaker ones would just be faking human nature as its going on everywhere you look: from the school playground bully to the rapist in the alley to the non/corrupt businessman - all are using people they view below them for their own happiness and gain, it wouldn't be much of a human world if it wasn't going on, especially when people have nothing and everyone is fighting for survival. Swearing well...its swearing and it comes from everyones mouth at some point, though it doesn't have to be in excess. Finally Gore, well it should flow like real world blood and gore, if I shoot someones chest with a AMR why is there no massive hole and organs/blod splattered everywhere behind them - OK we have bloody mess and that red paint that appears if the enemy is near a wall but really it looks nowhere near real enough to be immersive and gruesome.

/IwrotemorethanIthought.

The excellent writing, game design (much better balanced mechanics and much better quests), and the fact that it's actually Fallout rather than "wouldn't it be kool to have giant supermutants and a town built around an unexploded bomb" school of world building that Bethesda seems to like.

The last is especially important to people to who played the originals.

Legion has about four quests that are officially theirs (Lucius has one, Vulpes, Nelson, one more I forget...), where you have to talk to them to get the quest. However, there's about 6-7 more quests that are "NCR" quests that can be solved in such a way that benefits and pleases the Legion. (That Lucky Old Sun, Eye for an Eye, You put a Spell on Me, Omertas, White Gloves, the Silus Treatment, etc)

everyone else pretty much took the words out of my mouth....does anyone else noticed the OP just kind of bailed on the topic?

hopefully we'll get an reasonable response from the good user

What makes Fallout: New Vegas a good game is the customization, the choice, the atmosphere, the writing, the combat, the characters, the setting and so many other things. What makes Fallout: New Vegas one of the truly great games, which also separates itself from Fallout 3, is that it is the least linear experience I have ever had in a game and who your enemies are depends entirely on your choice and your perspective.

Fallout NV has better gameplay, so in my mind it is a better game.

Weapons and damage systems are improved over 3.
Perks felt more interesting and rewarding than 3's.
Skills felt more fleshed out and provide more ways of interacting with the game.
Companions felt like actual people instead of cliche robots.
Settlements had logical reasons for their locations.
Etc...

The actual game mechanics of Fallout NV are way better than 3, but 3 has better level design. I feel it is very important for a game to have great gameplay no matter what scale the world is. TES gets too much slack for being large worlds with shallow gameplay.

Rule 14.... Damnit. You got the games backwards.

For me it is a lot more immersive than fallout 3. When i try to play fo3 I do quests because i want to see the ending. In fo:nv I do quests because i am immersed and i want to do them. Fo3 doesn't pull me in fo:nv does.

This. I love having a lot of choices,and new vegas gives me a [censored] load,Also its, a true fallout game, which means that it explains just about everything and rellys on realism instead of mindless fun like in fallout 3(Im NOT saying that its a bad game, and its exploration was so great cuz bethesda didnt care aboyt realism ie. mexican ghouls on their underwear with a party hat on their nuka-cola modeled house in the sewers).

I agree with what everyone else said, but I'm also going that to say that NV is a real RPG where as FO3 is, well, kind of linear and more of a sandbox game than a real RPG.

Here's some examples:

In FO3 you can max out all skills and all SPECIAL sats, making them worthless by the end of the game. In NV you can't max out all skills and SPECIAL stats by the end of the game (especially if you choose Logan's Loophole). This forces you to make choices, adding realism to the game and upping the replay value.

In FO3 role-playing is pretty difficult unless you mod the game. For example, if you want to RP as a Talon Company merc, its pretty immersion breaking when you:

1.) Are shot on sight by all Talon Company no matter what you do
2.) when you can't join the faction at all

The same goes for the Enclave, what if you're an Enclave fan? What if you want to join them because you think the Brotherhood are a bunch of idiots? You can't, because the Enclave is not a joinable faction, they just attack you no matter what.
In NV you can join any faction, and once you become liked by that faction the other members will acknowledge you as such and talk to you as if you were a member of that faction.

But it was. Basically. And it was even the goal of the devs to the critical point.

Even if it was better made better and all over improved (and it really was all over improved), it did nothing too noticeable to really separate the gameplay from Fallout 3 (which is understandable considering the circumstances), so calling it Fallout 3 with improvements is quite adequate IMO.

My hopes with Obsidian lied with the writing (which they did indeed deliver) and gameplay (which they, for the most part, didn't), and I got a "Fallout 3 almost as it should've been made by the Bethesda to begin with method" but not Fallout as it should've been made (writing aside everything was still quite off).

The Kings.

Well, with the engine they had to work with I think they made as many gameplay improvements as they could have.

They made it so that the player could take 75% damage during VATS instead of the 10% in FO3, so it made the turn based aspect of combat a little bit more sensible.

They added a ton of new ammo types that are each useful for different situations.

They made the armor system DT based (and made power armor stronger again)

The weapon balancing in New Vegas was great, and that really improved combat and RPing for me personally (although I think energy weapons were a little bit under-powered, they should have been rare but powerful imo)

Yes. I said the use of the engine and assets was understandable. At least I tried to imply such. And the experience had it's uppers and downers.

Ammotypes with this kind of game are troublesome because you do not need any. It's good to have a bunch, sure, but if you do not need any in any situation, why would you be concerned about them even if you did think they're a good addition (and there was no situation where a different set of ammo would've been useful)?

DT was indeed an improvement over the Beth system, but with it being a global number and the MQ being scaled to you, what real tactical difference did it make?

The weapon balancing in NV is something Beth does need to take a close look (both in pre and post release sense)!

The biggest real difference between the games is the writing, because it makes the most difference in a playthrough.

Huh? The specialty ammo types were very useful.

I like both games almost equally. I find Fallout New Vegas a better 'Fallout' game and RPG, while I find Fallout 3 a better Bethesda-style open world exploration game.

Fallout 3 is actually the odd one out in the series with the openness of its world and the exploration elements.

I think fallout NV is a better game in just about every way... depth,rpg elements,writing,quests,characterization,gameplay mechanics, and a logicly designed game world...

That being said.... there was somithing incrediably immersive about FO3s atmosphere...especialy offset by the Galaxy News Radio soundtrack. That for me is unparralelled by any other gameplay experiance.

I was a couple hundred hrs into my first FO3 playthru ( I'd wake up and play all day till I went to sleep) when I got arrested on a traffic warrent one day on my way to a friends barbeque. I spent about a week in jail.... but when I'd wake up in the morning It would take me a second to figure out that I wasnt in the D.C. wasteland... I would dream I was in the world of Fallout3.... It was like having a Fallout I V pulled outta my arm.

I'd still hear the songs in my head for an hr or two after eating breakfast.... " A bongo,bongo,bongo I don wanna leave the Congo....Oh no no no no...."


But yeah, New Vegas is still a better game by far.